Psyche logo

Living with border line personality disorder

The depressive episodes of BPD

By Tracy Rose Published 4 years ago 8 min read
2

What is BPD? Border line personality disorder. I’m not going to bore you with my diagnoses. I’m going to paint you a vivid picture. It’s getting into recovery but the symptoms and feelings still exist as if you were a little girl still. The fear of abandonment, feeling unloved, feeling like I’m not good enough and invalidated. That my friends and family are better off without me. That I’m broken. Like physically broken because my brain is broken. It doesn’t function properly. Life in recovery for me in minimizing my BPD episodes. However they will always exist. So it’s more about how I should cope with them. I was triggered a few days ago when my oldest brother made a comment that he’s never been my actual Dad. As you know as I just told you brings up the feelings of being invalidated, unloved and not good enough. Living with a loved one who has BPD it’s important you learn how to specifically word everything you say. It’s not so much about the things you say it’s how you say them. My brother could’ve said “I love that you feel I was there you like a dad because I know your dad wasn’t, I’ve just always felt like an older brother who loves you very much.” Saying the same thing but one triggers an episode and one doesn’t. For us borderliners we have that one or few people who we can call to at least subside the depressive episode because it’s hard to make it fully stop. My brother whose 5 years older than I am is my life line. I often feel he’s my IV when I’ve lost blood. Or my oxygen tube when I can’t breathe. Meaning he’s saved my life. My only proof that there are amazing kind hearted loyal men in this world is because my brother exists. He’s the most amazing male figure I’ve ever known. In my episodes I feel like I don’t deserve him. Just ten minutes on the phone with my one brother he pulled me out of falling into a deep depressive episode. Truthfully I question if I really deserve him. Im so broken sometimes that I start to feel that he may get tired of putting me back together. I don’t know how he makes my illnesses a priority. How he does it with a wife, kid and two jobs. And with all that in my life my brother is the only human in my life who has never triggered me. I think it’s because he knows me the best out of everybody because he experiences my episodes with me. I know I rely on him a lot and sometimes I feel guilty about it because I know I could never completely return the favor to him. He doesn’t need me to save his life. Not sure how people like my brother exist. But he does. And I’m so grateful because he helps make my episodes manageable and sometimes can pull me out. I felt much better after I spoke to him as I ate something and laughed just minutes after. Then that night my ex happens. He’s the biggest trigger I’ve ever had in my life. Every single trigger that I’ve mentioned with BPD he hits all of them consistently. He’s a selfish heroin addict and quite honestly my severe illness has never mattered at all to him. It’s not that I love somebody because they are unavailable bc of drugs. What nobody understands is I love him because he’s the only man that’s loved me as much as my brother does. It’s the passion and the love he feels so strongly for me that makes it hard to leave. Even though he can’t present the love in the right way because he’s unhealthy. Because of drugs his love is toxic. But I see his core personality all the time before the drugs take over him. And the person he is in his core is somebody I’m devestayed that I have no choice but to stay away from. He never completely understands that I am just as sick as he is. He minimizing my struggles. So he then triggers me just a few hours before I just was. He doesn’t show up to see me when he knew I really needed him after he had recently told me loves me but then took it back and said he loved drugs and being with other girls more. So it checks off everything. He made me feel abandoned, unloved and not good enough. The second we feel this way the depressive episode spirals. You know you’re very susceptible to fall into an episode when you’ve been self medicating a lot. My ex was deeply stressing me out and for a week and I was taking my sleeping pill and drinking myself to sleep. The worst part of it is knowing how sick he’s making me because he won’t better himself and how hard it is to leave him when they are those loving passionate times his core personality exists. So the episode starts as I was already close to my breaking point. All it took was two triggers. But the triggers from my ex hit harder than other people. His triggers have me stuck in episodes for days. When they honestly can be as short as 30 minutes. Immediately I feel actual emptiness in my chest. With BPD we have chronic feelings of emptiness. My chest physically hurt. And when it does I have a hard time sleeping. I feel alone. Hollowed out. And really just empty. The emptiness hurts to much to sleep. Especially in an less familiar place. Not your safe space. It was 4 AM but I told my cousin I needed to be home. I’d never get out of my episode if I didn’t try and heal. Which means sleeping in my safe space. That’s how we heal from episodes. Only thing you can do is sleep in a place that always makes us feel secure. That night a young male driver drove me home. I purposely kissed him in a way I knew would drive him crazy and make him utterly obsessed with me. And then ghost him. I do this a lot. It’s to make me feel powerful and sadly feel better about myself. That they fall in love with me after one kiss and I run inside and block them on everything after they declare their obsession for me. And I know they’ll spend days even weeks to months thinking about that one kiss with me. My friends say I’m the definition of a male player. I think I’m just fucked up in the head. I went to sleep and felt that I was better. I did a few things to heal. Made sure to get out of my bed. Watch a show I love. Showered twice. Listen to rock music and go for a drive. Get my favorite Gatorade. Get some sun. Call my brother to say hi. But I barely ate that day maybe 400 calories. I wake up again the next day having convinced myself I was fine. However still haven’t eaten anything and it’s 9:00 PM. I realize my hunger pains is a way I self harm in my depressive episodes now that I’ve overcome bulimia and don’t binge and purge. My closest friend knows when I’m in the episode. My voice is completely flat. I sound lifeless. And my cute giggle is nonexistent. I actually can barely smile or laugh. My mom is worried because I won’t eat. And she’s nervous I won’t wake up all day. My closest friend feels helpless because she wishes she could pull me out but she knows there’s nothing she can do. A lot of times during the episode you can’t really sleep. Sad thing is I can’t even pull my self out of the episode. I just use my healthy coping mechanisms, like right now writing this article. And sleep to heal and pray I wake up and the episode is done and I have my appetite and life back to my body, voice and facial expressions. At this point it’s a few days into my depressive episode. Life is actually great. I finally met someone where the feelings are mutual. Had two real estate closings. My modeling is going really well. And contracts are being signed on my first flip property. I’m even consistently losing weight. There’s no rationality behind the episodes sometimes. Someone who holds power over us triggers us and it’s hard to pull ourselves out. Today I am not experiencing chronic feelings of emptiness. I feel more lifeless and drained. I only hate 600 calories all day because the hunger pains make me feel better. It’s my “healthy” way to self harm in recovery. Instead of impulsive dangerous behaviors that could leave me in jail or dead. I listen to sad songs and cry instantly after thinking I was just okay. I can’t hold back tears. The thing that sent me in the episode haunts me until it’s over. My most used coping mechanism is driving blasting emo music. Which is rock, alternative rock, hard rock, punk rock. The music actually pulses through my veins, it penetrates my skin and the screaming words of depression and suicidal ideation with loud beating drums and electric guitar numb the sadness and speak to me on a level that I know these bands deeply understand what I’m feeling. I don’t always experience suicidal ideation. This episode I haven’t felt like the world would be a better place without me or that I’m a failure. This episode has mainly been strong feelings of sadness and the inability to feel anything other than morose. Even with all the good around me. I’m stuck in a bubble where there’s a gray rain cloud showering on me all day and night. Even though outside my bubble a few feet from me the sun is beating down. All that I can do now at 3:00 AM is try to sleep. All I can hope is that I heal this time I sleep and wake up out of the episode. Sometimes we have to walk away from people just to save ourselves. Even the ones we love the most.

personality disorder
2

About the Creator

Tracy Rose

Just a survivor and her writings. ❤️

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.